Rolling right along

[OwlCaboose2853]

Rolling right along
With record revenues, Norfolk Southern is on the right track; but to keep going full steam ahead, it needs room to grow.

http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/ne ... southern_6 (photo)

http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/ne ... southern_8 (photo)

By Jon Rutter
Sunday News

Published: Jan 15, 2005 8:30 PM EST


LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Inside the stark, steel cab of Norfolk Southern Engine No. 3419, the romance of railroading basically boils down to these things:

The rails stretching away beyond the windshield. A coffee-colored, no frills engineer’s seat. A throttle. A brake. “You won’t find many examples of a more practical piece of machinery,” said Norfolk Southern Corp. public relations director Rudy Husband.


But the simplicity of this burly diesel-electric locomotive is deceptive. The venerable iron horse is powering an industry lately reinvigorated by improved efficiency and customer service.


Measured in ton-miles, according to the Association of American Railroads, U.S. rail carriers now handle 42 percent of all domestic intercity freight.

There’s a rub, though.


The U.S. rail network withered as the highway system flourished after World War II, and railroad mergers led to the abandonment of thousands of miles of little-used corridors. Now, the largely land-locked rail carriers must find ways to boost capacity.


Lancaster County, one of the fastest-growing markets in the Norfolk Southern system, illustrates the challenge. Home base for the railroad here is the Dillerville Yard, which is squeezed between Armstrong World Industries and Harrisburg Pike.


While the small yard is already busy around the clock, Husband said, local businesses are clamoring to move more goods by rail.


Most commodities shipped in and out of the county by train move via the Columbia secondary line connecting Lancaster to Columbia and the Enola Yard at Harrisburg. Much rail traffic flows through the county over the “port road” that parallels the Susquehanna River and links Harrisburg with Perryville, Md.


But Norfolk Southern, which uses passenger train tracks as well as its own lines to move freight, cannot always dispatch trains whenever it wants.


Working around Amtrak traffic on the Northeast Corridor can lead to scheduling bottlenecks, according to Norfolk Southern yardmaster Terry L. Albright, who said freight traffic on that line is limited to the nighttime hours. Amtrak has the right-of-way by law, Albright said. “If their trains run late our window is cut down.”


But such hurdles have uncoupled none of the glamour from the clanking freights, whose wailing whistles still thrill railroad fans.


Husband said Norfolk Southern “trainspotters,” take their hobby to the next level by photographing and documenting the comings and goings of trains.


“There’s plenty of people that still think they’re fascinating.”


Rail force


Norfolk Southern Corp. was created in 1981 by the consolidation of the Norfolk and Western Railroad and the Norfolk Southern Railway.


The company chose its now-familiar “thoroughbred” horse logo after ruling out other potential mascots, including the armadillo.


While Norfolk, Va., is its corporate headquarters, Pennsylvania is, in one respect, the railroad’s symbolic home.


Norfolk Southern has taken over much former Pennsylvania Railroad territory and is the logical successor to that rail giant of old, said David W. Dunn, director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.


But NS influence extends far beyond the Keystone State.


The railroad operates a fleet of 2,500 road engines and 100,000 freight cars over a system winding 21,500 miles through 22 eastern states and the District of Columbia. Track-sharing agreements with other railroads have enabled NS to significantly widen its market.


The company uses Canadian Pacific lines from Sunbury to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., according to Husband, and it partners with Guilford Rail System to reach southern Maine.


Last fall, it joined Canadian Pacific in asking the federal government to approve track and switch sharing services that would extend its access to the eastern Canadian provinces.


Norfolk Southern buys more than 100 new locomotives annually and has expanded its workforce every year for three years.


But these full-steam-ahead days have been a long time in coming.


Starting in the 1950s, railroads steadily lost ground to trucks, which took over more and more markets as the highway system expanded.


In 1970, said Dr. John C. Spychalski, a Penn State professor of supply chain management, Penn Central’s demise marked the largest corporate bankruptcy of its time.


But trains held a hidden card, he said.


“There’s a lesser coefficient of friction between a steel wheel and a steel rail. ... On the average, rail freight service is much more efficient” and burns proportionately less fuel than motor freight.


Husband said one 100-ton coal car can haul as much as four trucks. A single train double-stacked with “intermodal” cargo containers that also fit on trucks and cargo ships equals 200 trucks.


For a decade, intermodal has been the fastest railroad growth sector, and Norfolk Southern’s share last year leaped 14 percent above the 2003 figure.


“We actually move 28-foot United Parcel Service trailers,” said Husband, who noted that many Amazon.com orders reach their destinations by rail.


In recent years, railroads have overhauled their operations to capitalize on these economies of scale and woo more shippers from trucking.


Gone is the tradition of waiting until a train is full to send it out of the yard.


Now, Norfolk Southern and other companies run more frequent, tightly scheduled freights, which allows customers to reduce inventories and save money.


The technique appears to be a hit, especially here.


“The Lancaster area is one of our fastest-growing business areas,” said Norfolk Southern chairman David R. Goode, who spoke Oct. 2 at the Friends of the Railroad Museum Members Day banquet at Host Resort.


“I’ve never seen a better time to make money in the rail business.”


Growing pains


Dillerville Yard is the nucleus of the railroad’s 85 route miles in Lancaster County.


Sandwiched between Harrisburg Pike and Armstrong World Industries, the yard boasts a small repair shop and a dozen sidings. Eight locomotives are stationed there.


Amtrak’s Keystone Corridor carries one Norfolk Southern train a day to Coatesville, according to Husband. Spurs branching off the Keystone line serve Norfolk Southern customers in New Holland and Lititz.


Also feeding the railroad’s area freight network are three short lines: the Landisville Terminal & Transfer Co. Inc., the Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad and the York Railway Co.


“Strasburg [Rail Road] does a car now and then,” said Terry Albright, the Dillerville yardmaster.


Kellogg’s, L&S Sweeteners, Donnelley and Armstrong World Industries are among Norfolk Southern’s largest customers here.


Many cars coming into the Dillerville Yard bring steel, grain, chemicals, corn sweeteners or paper, Albright said, while most of the departing traffic consists of empties heading for the railroad’s long-distance classification yard at Enola.


The proposed Conoy Township ethanol plant will become a big customer if approved, he said.


But even now, Albright said, the yard handles 13,000 to 15,000 freight cars a month and is busier than it has ever been.


He dispatches 15 to 20 trains a day over the “port road” that hugs the river between Harrisburg and Perryville, Md., at the head of the Chesapeake Bay.


At Perryville, freight traffic is shunted onto Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, but only between 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. to avoid conflict with passenger service, Husband said. “When the sun goes down, the pace picks up,” Albright said.


Any delays can be expensive.


A single tardy auto parts shipment can cost the railroad $250,000 an hour, according to Mike Wilson, Norfolk Southern division assistant superintendent for this area. “That’s a heck of a liability.”


Passenger railroads and freight railroads “coexist uneasily,” said Spychalski, the Penn State professor. But they need each other because few new rail corridors can be built in the congested Northeast.


Amtrak chairman David Gunn has been a friend to freight haulers, according to Wilson.


Norfolk Southern is negotiating with Amtrak to upgrade its tracks to handle bigger freight cars, said Husband, who noted that the trend over the past 20 or 30 years has been toward heavier cars.


But freight railroads also depend on each other, according to Goode, the Norfolk Southern CEO.


“There’s an enormous amount of interchange between eastern roads and western roads,” Goode said. Last year, when hurricanes and floods disrupted schedules at CSX, its biggest interchange partner, Norfolk Southern, felt the ripples.


Upgrading facilities and rolling stock helps blunt such risks.


Among other projects in recent years, Norfolk Southern has spent $21 million restoring its classification yard at Enola.


In August, it persuaded the Lancaster County commissioners to approve release of a $1.6 million federal grant to expand the Dillerville Yard.


Such funding is allocated to counties for projects that cut pollution and highway congestion. Norfolk Southern will add a span of track and store 100 additional rail cars from which goods were previously unloaded and brought here by truck from Harrisburg.


According to Christopher Neumann, head of the county’s planning transportation section, the move will reduce truck travel on county roads by 2,600 trips annually.


Shifting the entire yard, a potential benefit for northwest Lancaster development, has been discussed with the railroad only in passing, said David Nikoloff, executive director of the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County.


On the safety front, Husband said, installing cameras on the head end of locomotives has aided accident analysis and helped identify potential hazards.


As part of a long-term pilot energy saving study, the railroad has equipped several of its GE Dash 9 engines running between Roanoke, Va., and Belews Creek, N.C., with a specialized computer monitor.


The software developed by New York Air Brake Corp. creates a statistical profile over many trips and guides the engineer in maximizing fuel efficiency and determining the safest train handling practices.


Many factors impact engine performance, according to Husband, who said Norfolk Southern typically runs shorter freights in cold weather because the air in the air brake system doesn’t reach the rear cars of very long trains. Still, the trains roll on, and demand for their service grows.


“There’s no end in sight,” Albright said.


Norfolk Southern must find a way to move an ever-larger share of the freight transported in this country, Husband said.


“It’s a nice problem to have.”

Norfolk Southern, the 24-year-old powerhouse that rules the rails in Lancaster County and much of the East, earned record revenues during the first half of 2004. It posted 2003 earnings of $535 million, up from $460 million the year before. With demand for rail freight service mushrooming, the railroad is busily buying engines and hiring new workers.

[fmca311533]

I'm looking for information on track locations/names used by NS in the Lancaster area. Some of these include, #1 Industrial, #2 Industrial, "O" track, and there are others. Railfaning in this area is extremely difficult. I receive a lot of information by scanning, but cannot get an accurat fix on these locations. Any help would be appreciated.